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The Lowell Sun

Updated:
06/10/2014 07:41:47 AM EDT

Audra McDonald tearfully accepts the Tony Award for best performance by an actress in a leading role in a play for Lady Day at Emerson s Bar & Grill. The awards show, up against the second game between the Miami Heat and the San Antonio Spurs, slipped in ratings from last year.
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Tony Awards slip from last year's ratings

The Tony Awards with hopping host Hugh Jackman couldn't leapfrog last year's show in the ratings.

According to preliminary Nielsen figures released Monday, Sunday's CBS telecast crowning "A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder" as Broadway's best musical had an average viewership of 7.02 million viewers, a dip from last year's 7.24 million. It was still the second-largest audience in the last five years.

Neil Patrick Harris, the show's longtime host, ceded control to Jackman this year. Instead, he took the Tony Award for best actor in a musical for his role in "Hedwig and the Angry Inch."

Brad Paisley: Treat soldiers with respect

While it's true patriotism means different things to different people in the U.S., Brad Paisley thinks we can all agree on one aspect: Military personnel should be treated with respect.

This belief spurred two recent actions: Paisley joined President Barack Obama on a trip to Afghanistan to perform for troops and took a moment recently to mock Westboro Baptist Church protesters outside a concert in Kansas. Members of that Topeka, Kansas, church sometimes conduct anti-gay demonstrations at military funerals in opposition to government policies.

"My patriotism starts there," Paisley said in an interview before performing at the CMA Music Festival on Sunday night. "We're talking about, I think everyone can agree -- except maybe Westboro Baptist -- on the fact our soldiers are our most important, the most amazing people that we've had.

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Paisley, who has a new singing contest show, "Rising Star," that begins this month and a new album due in August, traveled to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan with Obama on May 25. The experience was still fresh when the son of a veteran encountered protesters outside his show June 1.

The 41-year-old West Virginia native took a selfie while making a face with protesters in the background and posted it to Instagram with a mildly profane caption that mocked the church.

"I feel like I'm one of those people that defies category," Paisley said. "I'm all over the map in a lot of ways, but I feel like being on a journey of trying to figure out how to make this country better is a healthy thing and something I like to look into. I don't know any answers to it. But, you know, sort of daily it's easy to look at something and say here's what you should be doing. It's harder and more of my approach to look at something and say, 'OK, what are both sides."'

'Book lady' to receive Lemony Snicket prize

A New Orleans-based librarian known as "the book lady" for her dedication to her community has won the inaugural Lemony Snicket Prize for Noble Librarians Faced With Adversity.

Laurence Copel will receive $3,000 in prize money for her efforts, which include setting up a library in her own home and riding her bicycle to reach families in need of books. The award, announced Monday, is co-sponsored by the American Library Association and Lemony Snicket author Daniel Handler. The ALA and Handler cited Copel as a librarian who managed difficult times with "integrity and dignity intact."

Her dignity will be tested June 29 at the ALA's annual conference in Las Vegas. Along with a certificate, she is set to receive "an odd object from Handler's private collection."

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